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Category Archives: holiday

Christmas is my favorite. With the kids, every year gets better and better. Except for the puke. I think every year since we started having kids someone has puked on Christmas. Next year’s goal: No Puke.

I love all of the things about Christmas.

Christmas Cookies

Scary Santa Photos

Family Parties

Christmas Decorations

Christmas Eve Traditions

Christmas Morning

We had a busy and fun season. It was fun to have the boys understand more of the meaning of Christmas this year. They loved talking about baby Jesus and trying to do nice things for each other as their present for Him.

For the first few years of our marriage, Novembers were pretty momentous: a marriage, our first home and all three of our babies came in November. Now we celebrate all month long. This year we celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary, the fifth year in our home, Isaac’s fourth birthday and the twins’ third birthday–not to mention birthdays of a grandma, a great-grandpa and an uncle. Oh yeah, and then there’s Turkey Day. This year we also welcomed a new little cousin to the month of festivities. We were sad we could only make his acquaintance via pictures and Google hangout.

The top accomplishment of November 2014 was potty-trained twins!

This was the third attempt and it finally took. Disney on Ice was coming to Salt Lake on Isaac’s birthday. We decided that would be a good birthday gift for him so about 6 weeks before the event we told the twins we’d take them to see Buzz and Woody too if they learned to go potty. It was a good incentive and the boys caught on much quicker than I expected them to. I was so happy and grateful!

Disney on Ice was SO FUN. The boys helped me decide on having a Toy Story birthday this year so it was very appropriate. We rode the train up from Thanksgiving Point and they were super impressed.

During the show we got to see Mater and McQueen first—which was awesome (Ariel and Tinkerbell in the middle—which was just ok) and the whole second act was basically Toy Story 3. The boys were in heaven. And of course for dinner there was pizza. After all that we still got to take the train back home. It was a fun birthday celebration.

We had a couple of family parties later in the month complete with Toy Story cake, decorations (Isaac insisted), gifts and photo ops.

After all of the birthdays were over, Derek and I took off for a lovely anniversary weekend in Salt Lake. Every year we pretty much do the same thing: see the newest Hunger Games (it always coincides with our anniversary), eat at Settebellos (the restaurant from our first date), get a massage and do a little shopping. This year I got our movie tickets in the VIP theatre at the Megaplex in Sandy. I had heard about it a few times and thought we’d splurge. I’d probably make sure we got the recliners next time. The seats we got weren’t all that great. The experience was fun though.

We spent Thanksgiving with my family at Grandpa Hitchcock’s new house. It was just a few of us and it was really nice. Plus turkey and mashed potatoes are my favorite. We have a lot to be thankful for. I am grateful for a good husband, a warm home and three beautiful children. I love that we get to celebrate these blessings right before Thanksgiving every year.

I love Halloween. I was feeling ambitious this year and the boys were pretty excited about bats and spiders and things so we spent all month making decorations and costumes.

I should have taken this picture when it was really dark out. Oh well. The witch silhouette was pretty awesome.

For Fall Break my mom invited us down to Palisades State Park for an overnight trip. We had a fun time playing with cousins and the boys loved the cabins complete with bunk beds. Here’s a picture of the littlest boys playing on the big rock.

I love coordinating our family’s costumes every year. My kids are still fairly easy to convince young so we’ll see how many years I can indulge in matching attire. The boys are old enough to have somewhat of an opinion so I gave them a few matchy options and let them vote. I thought Toy Story would be fun or Monsters Inc. I was also keeping twinner costumes in mind like Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum and, of course, Things 1 and 2 were options. The boys unanimously voted for Mario Brothers. I don’t know why that was the top of the list (we don’t play it all that much) but I have to admit I was super excited to make a Princess Peach dress. I was also really lucky to find some awesome tutorials for Mario and Luigi hats and even a Hammer Brothers outfit (adapted from this Bowser costume). Isaac was super insistent on his choice of character.

I was working on costumes until the minute we walked out the door for the ward trunk or treat. I still had finishing touches before Halloween night but I think they turned out pretty cute. At least they were a fun challenge for me to make. (Derek is a good sport to put up with me.)

We went down to Jaker’s in Springville for a pre-school field trip. I should have gotten a picture with all of the boys but here’s me and my boys at least.

My friend Anna from high school invited us to go to Cornbelly’s for a family date night one Saturday night. I forgot jackets but it was a beautiful night and we had lots of fun.

Our friends hosted a Halloween party the week before Halloween. Look at all those boys! We forgot to get a picture of the kids before all of the families with girls left.

On Halloween night Derek took the boys around the neighborhood trick-or-treating while I stayed home to hand out candy. I should have just gone with them. We only had two groups of kids knock on our door. That happens every year. You’d think I would learn… After trick-or-treating we went down to Springville to show off our costumes to Grandma and Grandpa and the cousins.

We have had a really fun summer so far. It has been really BUSY! Up until this year the summers haven’t really felt any different than the rest of the year since our kids aren’t in school or anything yet. Also, the boys weren’t quite big enough to fully enjoy (or, let’s be honest, for ME to fully enjoy) more than a trip to the park or a play date.